


Rust and Stardust

by bea_meupscotty



Series: Ever and Ever Sight [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fourth Year, Humor, Yule Ball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 14:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17245580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bea_meupscotty/pseuds/bea_meupscotty
Summary: Hermione is nervous about kissing Viktor at the Yule Ball, and enlists help from unexpected quarters.***Lucius is Hermione's first kiss. Tagged underage but FYI there's only kissing.





	Rust and Stardust

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Lucius or Hermione, obviously, since if I did they would be canon. These characters belong to JKR, we just get to play with them. 
> 
> I'm working on my WIP Epistolary Charms and trying to get back into the swing of writing, and this little ficlet demanded to be written, so I gave it what it wanted. I hope you enjoy! As always, I love to get your feedback and constructive comments!

Strains of music were floating gently through the the crisp evening air, fairies chittering and murmuring as they floated softly from bush to bush, the perfume of roses in the air, but somehow, in spite of all of this, in spite of her beautiful dress and the international Quidditch star waiting patiently for her inside, Hermione found herself pacing a secluded corner of the impromptu rose gardens conjured on the Hogwarts lawn for the Yule Ball, flipping pages frantically. The repetitive crunch of her heels on the rocky path beneath her grounded her and marked the time passing, as she rifled through the magazines she’d shrunk and concealed within her small bag, gnawing on her lip frustratedly. 

No, no, this wasn’t working. Just looking, just reading and researching was clearly not going to be enough. She still had no practical sense of what she was supposed to be doing, and that was absolutely necessary for her to feel prepared. She frowned, looking at her surroundings. She’d need to be creative; her resources here were limited, even with magic, and she wanted to avoid drawing attention to herself. She noticed a statue of a somewhat imperious-looking wizard standing with his hands on his hips a few yards away, slightly elevated on a stone pedestal, but not too tall, and shrugged to herself. The statue looked reasonably detailed, carved of smooth marble. It would do in a pinch. 

And so, with that, Hermione gathered herself, papers bundled beneath one arm, climbed onto the pedestal in one swift motion, and, leaning forward, pressed her lips against the statue’s cool marble mouth.

***

The stiff chill winter wind was a soothing balm, and Lucius Malfoy tipped his head back to drink it in as he meandered through the makeshift gardens, further and further off the beaten path. He’d had a number of drinks inside that was just shy of inappropriate, and the cold of the outdoors made him realize he’d grown flushed and overwarm inside. As the heat dissipated, his head cleared - regrettably. He could see it, could feel it happening, knew what it meant. He scratched at his left forearm, but without the pleasant haze of mulled wine he could no longer pretend it was just an absentminded itch, maybe a rash. He’d heard Karkaroff and Snape through one of the hedges and had considered stopping to interject, if only to alert them to the fact that they weren’t as discreet as they clearly thought they were, but he’d hesitated, turned and kept going. He wasn’t sure if he could trust himself not to reveal his thoughts in their entirety, to shush their inane chattering and spell it out as plainly as he saw it: _He will return, has returned, is returning - the tense irrelevant, the inevitability important. He will call for us. When he does, there is nowhere we can run or hide that is beyond his reach, if he is truly returned. If we run, he will kill us. So when the call comes, the choice is simple - go or die._

The choice is simple - go or die. Go or die. Go or die. 

The crunching stone beneath his feet seemed to take on the cadence, echoing his thoughts back at him. 

Go or die. 

It was with these thoughts in mind that Lucius turned a corner into an ever further corner of the gardens and stopped short, arrested by the sight of a well-dressed girl, standing atop a pedestal, gently kissing a marble statue of former Headmaster Vindictus Veridian.

***

Hermione was noting that, while this at least had the advantage of letting her get a feel for what it would be like to kiss something actually lip-shaped, she hoped that Viktor’s lips wouldn’t be quite so cold, and presumably he would want to move somehow, rather than standing still as a statue, when she heard a choked, startled cough from her right.

Horrified, Hermione jumped away from the statue, but in her haste to scramble away from it, she forgot the pedestal, and, her heel catching on the edge, twisted and fell towards the ground with a panicked squeak, the papers she’d been holding in her hands going flying. She closed her eyes, bracing herself against the expected sting of stone on her palms and knees, but she found instead that she’d landed on what felt like a plush feather bed - or an excellent Cushioning Charm. After a few careful breaths, she looked up to thank her rescuer and found that, no matter the breathing she’d done moments ago, all air was sucked from her lungs as she stared at none other than Lucius Malfoy. 

“Oh no,” she murmured softly, almost to herself, feeling her skin turn bright red and tears of embarrassment begin to prick at the corners of her eyes. 

“Are you alright, Miss, er, Granger?” the Malfoy scion asked, sounding much closer than he had a few moments ago. Hermione drew her thin shoulders tight and straightened her spine before she looked up to face him again, noticing that he was reaching out a hand to help her up. Lips pressed tightly together, Hermione disregarded his proffered hand and clambered to her feet, chin raised high. This may have been a nightmare of a situation, but she didn’t think she’d yet sunk so low that she needed to accept help from a _Malfoy_. 

“Yes, thank you, I’m quite alright,” she said, brushing dirt from her palms. With a grimace, she turned to her bag to get her wand, but when she’d come back around she noticed with a spark of horror that Mr. Malfoy had leaned down to help her gather the magazines that had flown from her arms when she’d tripped, which had now fallen open to pages depicting witches and wizards in various states of undress committing a variety of lewd acts. 

He at least had the decency to be blushing when he slammed one shut and handed it to her, which she took from him with a squeak. “I’m sorry if I... interrupted something,” he said with just the hint of an amused smirk, despite the blush on his cheeks, and it was the amusement, the laughter at her expense, that sparked something to life within her. 

“It’s-- no, you see-- they’re not _mine_ , I just nicked them from the 6th year boys dormitory!” she protested loudly, hastily grabbing at magazines on the ground and stuffing them into her bag before Mr. Malfoy could see or touch any more of them. 

“Is admitting to theft supposed to make me _less_ inclined to report you to your head of house? My, things are odd in Gryffindor indeed.”

The blood was too busy draining from Hermione’s face at the image of being marched up to Professor McGonagall in front of everyone at the ball by Lucius Malfoy, of all people, and being forced to explain that she’d been caught kissing a statue while holding a bunch of stolen dirty magazines, for her to notice the glint of humor in Malfoy’s eye, in spite of his dry tone. 

“No, you can’t do that! It was just-- I was just researching, I was going to put them back!” Hermione gasped desperately, mentally weighing her willingness to beg a Malfoy if it came to that. She’d considered hexing him, potentially Obliviating him, but she wasn’t confident in her ability to successfully best him under these circumstances, and she’d almost certainly face the real wrath of the Dark wizard, and worse, _definitely_ be expelled, if she were caught trying to perform such magic on him. So the question was whether her pride would be bruised more by begging, or by having her embarrassing situation known by everyone. Maybe she could convince him to do it discreetly, to call McGonagall to her office, away from prying eyes. 

“Researching?” His tone didn’t hide his disbelief and amusement. “What _are_ they teaching you in this castle that this what passes for research?” Malfoy drawled, picking up a magazine that had escaped her notice before and paging through the filthy moving images with a raised brow.

“Not for a _class,_ ” Hermione hissed, reaching out and grabbing the magazine out of his hands to shove it into her bag. “And what are you even doing here in the first place, Mr. Malfoy? Last I checked, the Yule Ball was for students. Who gave you permission to be here?” 

“The Minister invited me to attend,” Malfoy answered, with a supercilious smirk, “unless, of course, that’s not sufficient for your standards, Miss Granger.” 

Hermione cursed under her breath, ignoring the raised eyebrow he shot her. Her options were rapidly dwindling to ‘beg’, which she’d decided was better than the mocking laughter in her head of her classmates, of Viktor, of _Ron_ when her humiliating situation was revealed. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Mr. Malfoy, please, _please_ don’t report me to my head of house. I promise I’ll go back inside and put the magazines back and pretend I never saw you here, and you can pretend you never saw me, and we can both just forget this, please. I am honestly begging you, please don’t tell everyone what you saw.” 

She was startled by a short bark of laughter that somehow sounded devoid of amusement from the blonde in front of her. “Miss Granger, don’t worry. Whatever you may think of me, I have bigger things to worry about than humiliating little girls.” 

At that, Hermione’s spine stiffened and her lips pursed together angrily. “I am not a little girl! I am fifteen years old, maybe a bit older, because I have time traveled _extensively_ , I am the top of my class in every subject, I have faced deadly threats and bested them, I--” 

She was interrupted by a dismissive wave of Malfoy’s hand. “Be that as it may, Miss Granger, I came upon you consulting teenage dirty magazines and practicing kissing a statue. Accept my uncharacteristic Yuletide generosity, admit that in this, you are just a confused schoolgirl, and leave me be.” 

Shame flushed hot through Hermione’s veins at her situation laid bare - she _was_ just a little girl in this regard, fifteen years old and never been kissed, just a bookworm with no real world experience, a walking dictionary and not a girl, not the kind that Ron would ever notice and as soon as Viktor saw the truth of her, he would think so too and would regret having ever asked her to the Yule Ball, would turn away from her and find some other, better girl to be interested in. But she would be damned if Lucius bloody Malfoy got to say those things about her, and her shame turned into anger, and, frustrated tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, she clenched her hands into tight fists. “I said, I am not a little girl,” she declared desperately, and, in a fit of Gryffindor impetuosity and teenage hormonal impulse, she reached out, took ahold of Malfoy’s robes, and pulled him down to kiss him.

***

The Granger girl was kissing him.

It was certainly an unexpected turn of events - so unexpected, in fact, that for a few moments Lucius did nothing - just sat, stunned, as she pushed lips pressed thin with anger and determination fiercely against his own, a little too hard for it to be comfortable or pleasant. 

After a few more seconds of being ‘kissed’, Lucius gently pushed the younger girl off of him, blinking dazedly at the turn of events as she swiped furiously at her lips with the back of her hand. “Merlin, you _are_ a terrible kisser,” he murmured, half to himself, in amusement, and then watched in astonishment as the brash, accomplished girl in front of him crumpled, head falling into her hands as she sank in on herself with a wailing sob. _Bloody Merlin_ , he thought to himself as she drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and he reached out to pat tentatively at her back, shushing her furiously. As he leaned closer, he realized that she was actually speaking through her sobs.

“-- and I know I’m a terrible kisser, I’ve never even kissed, not really, and it’s so bloody silly but I just want him to think I’m this smart, sophisticated woman, and now I know that he’ll know it’s all just an act, and he’ll hate me--” 

“Never... even... That was your first kiss?” Lucius asked incredulously, his brain scrambling to keep up with the shifting events. 

“No! I mean, well, I kissed Alistair Jett in primary school but, now that I think about it that wasn’t a proper adult kiss, so perhaps yes, and _oh no_ I just gave my first real kiss to my worst enemy, and now I’m _crying_ in front of him--”

“I’d think that honor would’ve been reserved for the Dark Lord, but I’m flattered, Miss Granger.” 

“--and of course everyone will find out and Viktor will think I’m just some pathetic little girl, and everyone will laugh at me, and Ron will _never_ see me as a girl now--” 

“Ron... Weasley? The Weasley boy?” Lucius sputtered, certain he’d fallen into an alternate dimension, because even with her regrettable parentage, given everything he’d heard from Draco and seen when he’d been on the school’s Board of Governors, there was no way that in this universe the Granger girl was trying to impress Ronald Weasley. He noticed that she’d nodded furiously and was working her way up to a full throated defense of the Weasleys, her voice rising, and he frantically shushed her, now eager for no one to come upon their secluded corner and find him together with a crying teenage girl. 

“Shush, _shush_ Miss Granger, I merely meant that, well, ah... how shall I put this delicately? ... You are aware that you are, objectively, easily superior to Mister Weasley?” 

“Well, maybe at school, but that’s the _problem_ , he thinks I’m just some walking encyclopedia, not a human being, not a _girl_ and of course he’s right, I needed to learn how to kiss and I went and got books! bloody books! I’m a mess and no one will ever like me and I’ll never learn how to kiss, I’ll always be terrible--” 

She was crying again, escalating in pitch, and Lucius pressed his fingers against his temples, closing his eyes to the pathetic sight in front of him. Merlin, he’d forgotten about teenage bloody girls and all of their attendant drama. He hadn’t had to deal with one since he’d been a teen, blessedly, and, bloody hell, he had bigger problems to worry about than whether Hermione Granger knew how to kiss, they all did, it was a matter of life or death, she would look back on this moment months, years, later, whenever he came, and regret how much she’d thought this mattered. But, he thought, opening his eyes and sighing heavily, she didn’t have to know that now. She was Potter’s friend, and a Mudblood - when the Dark Lord returned, she too would have choices, one of which would always be death. Fight or die. Run or die. And in spite of all her accomplishments, all the things she’d thrown at him fiercely, she was just a child. 

And so maybe it was the mulled wine, or maybe it was the headache her crying had given him, or the Yuletide spirit, but something came over him, and he reached out to place a hand on her shoulder. The sudden touch caused her to jerk up, halting her tears for a moment. 

“Would you stop crying if--,” he paused, internally sighing as he recalibrated, “would it _help_ if I... told you how to kiss?”

***

Hermione must have heard him incorrectly. She blinked up at Mr. Malfoy, shaking her head slightly as if to clear the fog of her crying. Lucius Malfoy had not offered to give her... tips on how to kiss. It was simply not a possible fact in the reality in which they were living.

“I’m sorry, what?” she said, wiping at the tear streaks down her cheeks furiously. 

He took in a deep breath, glancing up at the sky as if he were considering his words carefully. “Would it help if I taught you how to kiss? Just... told you some things. Suggestions.” 

Hermione frowned, brow furrowing as she worried at her lower lip, mind churning. “What’s the catch?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“What’s the catch? You’re a Slytherin, and a Malfoy to boot. What on earth could possibly make you want to do this for me? You must be getting something out of it.” Hermione crossed her arms, mind whirring furiously through the possibilities. 

He sighed and looked at the sky again, but Hermione just tapped her foot impatiently. “Fine. What do I get out of this? I get you to stop bawling in my vicinity, which decreases the chances of someone coming here and suspecting I’ve done something to hurt the poor Gryffindor princess, and lets you get off on your merry, kissing way sooner so that I can resume my calming walk through the gardens.” She must still have had a skeptical look on her face, because he sighed and continued, “And we can say that you’ll be in my debt. Not hugely, but you’ll owe me a minor favor, and I’ll come calling at some point when I have need. Is that sufficiently Slytherin to pass your muster, before I change my mind?” 

Hermione’s face flushed at his reference to changing his mind. She’d been thinking while he’d been talking. On the one hand, it was invaluable kissing advice, and if she’d already wasted her first proper kiss on Lucius Malfoy she might as well get something out of it, but on the other hand it was _Lucius Malfoy_ , Draco’s father, former Death Eater (whether or not he’d been convicted). Then, on the other other hand, the fact that he was older would imply he was quite well-versed in the art of kissing, better than a fumbling student like herself, and he wasn’t unattractive - no, she thought, as her eyes skated up and down the figure in front of her, not unattractive. 

“No, I accept. But I have one... condition,” she said, hating herself for the slight hesitation. All that courage to make the demand, and to hesitate in the making.

“A condition?” he said disbelievingly, eyebrows skyrocketing. 

“Yes. It’s no use you telling me suggestions if I can’t test them out and see if I’m doing them properly. The practical is just as important as the theoretical. I’ll need to kiss you more, and for you to give me feedback on whether I’m implementing your instructions correctly.” She raised her chin slightly, voice as prim and proper as if she were discussing a three foot essay on the properties of Acromantula venom and not kissing her schoolyard bully’s father.

He seemed speechless a moment, but Hermione waited patiently. “Absolutely not,” he managed to finally sputter.

“Why not? Surely you don’t dispute the pedagogical point!” 

“Because you are a _student_!”

“So? What’s the point of even teaching me if you don’t do it properly?” 

“I am being uncharacteristically generous, Miss Granger, a generosity which does not extend to _kissing students for their own convenience_ ,” he hissed, face going red. 

“Well, then, how do I know you’re not going to give me bad advice? Or turn around and tell me these things and then go straight to McGonagall and rat me out anyway?” Hermione shot back, taking one step toward him.

“Maybe I’ll go do that right now, anyway. I’m not feeling particularly generous anymore, not after you’ve pushed my patience.” 

Hermione gasped. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t?” he crowed, starting as if to turn back out of their corner of the gardens.

“You wouldn’t, because I would tell everyone you kissed me!” 

He stilled at that, turning around with a sharp flash in his eye that hinted at danger. “No one would believe you.” 

“I’d show them the memory.”

He snorted derisively. “The memory of you kissing me?”

Hermione huffed, pride bruised by her easy dismissal of her. “Yes... slightly embellished, of course.” She smiled smugly to herself at the flash of surprise and anger in his face. “Yes, I know about manipulating memories, and how to do it. This one will only need a bit of doctoring, which should be well within my power.” 

His lips pressed firmly together, grasp on his cane tightening. “It would never stand up to Dumbledore’s scrutiny, much less the Ministry’s.” 

Her smile grew, and she delighted in the slight, confused wrinkle of his forehead at that. “Oh, no, I’m not trying to get you sent to prison. I’m nearly of age, and they wouldn’t charge you over just a kiss. But... if rumors were to fly, now, that could be harmful to you, especially given that I’m a Muggleborn and the circles you run in, but not worth real investigation. It would be a shame if a memory like that were to circulate Hogwarts, especially if it got around to say, Draco.” 

The flash of anger that crossed his face was so visceral that Hermione actually tightened her grip on her wand, mentally reciting the strongest Shield Charm she knew for the hex she was convinced he was about to throw at her, praying it wasn’t an Unforgiveable, when the anger dissipated and she realized that he was... laughing? 

“It’s a pity about your blood... You’d have made a fine Slytherin, you insufferable brat,” he said with a drawl, relaxing somewhat. “You’ve made your point. But what’s to assure me that I don’t accede to your demands, leave here tonight with your professors none the wiser of your extracurricular research, and then you turn around and circulate that delightful memory you’ve just described?” 

Hermione frowned, turning the question over in her head. He had a point, one she’d insist on being addressed if she were in his shoes. She could always put her nuclear option in place, whereas his was time-limited. She mulled the options over in her head.

“I’ll swear it.” 

Again, his brows rose, clearly not expecting her ready solution. “You’ll swear it?” 

She nodded. “Wording of my choice. That I’ll not tell anyone about seeing you here, this conversation, or any kiss between the two of us. And you’ll do the same.” 

He nodded slowly. “Not share the knowledge of these events with anyone, by any means.” 

“Fine.” 

He stilled, looking at a point to the left of her head, seemingly lost in thought. At last, he sighed heavily, and nodded. “Fine. But you’re an abysmal kisser and I don’t have all night. You get three kisses.”

“Five.”

“One, then.” 

“No, no, fine. I’ll accept three.” She took a deep breath. “Well, then.” She outstretched her arm, and with a raised brow, he clasped her palm, each reciting the words before she waved her wand in a lesser cousin of the Unbreakable Vow, more of a magically binding contract. 

“So, it’s done.”

***

He stared at the brash girl in front of him, who was suddenly reduced to twisting at a loose thread on her dress anxiously, wondering how he’d gotten himself into this mess, and with this girl, no less, who could threaten him with blackmail involving magic well beyond her age with confidence and swagger but was reduced to a nervous jumble by the prospect of a kiss. Not for the first or last time that evening, he looked helplessly at the stars above him, shaking his head at _teenage girls_.

“Well then, get on with it!” the girl muttered impatiently, the few moments he’d taken to think clearly weighing heavily on her nerves. Lucius sighed.

“First things first, relax.” He almost laughed at the unladylike snort she gave him. 

“That’s not helpful at all.” 

“Well it’s true,” he muttered mulishly. “You kiss like you’re going into battle, with grim determination. This is supposed to be a pleasant experience, even fun. You need to let yourself feel it. Relax your jaw, relax your lips, don’t press so hard.” 

Granger frowned, but pulled a quill and a scroll of parchment out of her bag (which must have been impressively charmed, his subconscious noted). “OK, so, relaxed lips, relaxed jaw... gentle pressure or no pressure?” 

He thought about telling her that taking notes was missing the point, but wrote it off as a lost cause. “For you, very little pressure.” She raised an eyebrow at that, nostrils flaring in anger, and he rolled his eyes. “If you want to ah, escalate a kiss, you could be a bit firmer. But even then, it’s better to think of it as drawing someone into you, not forcing yourself on them.” 

The girl sighed heavily. “Sure, that’s a nice concept, but _how_?” 

Lucius spread his palms in a shrug. “It’s not like there’s a handbook. To a certain extent, it’s improvisation.” 

Granger blanched - “I’m terrible at improvisation.” - and Lucius bit back a chuckle. Then her eyes grew sharp, her gaze drifting to the middle distance over his shoulder, and in their brief acquaintance he’d already learned this meant her brain was working busily, and, in these circumstances, that should make him worry. “Show me the difference.”

“That’d be one of your kisses,” he said tightly. He’d been hoping he’d be able to avoid doing much demonstrating and instead let the girl press a few more chaste kisses upon him before he could get back to brooding. Merlin, he was getting as bad at Snape.

“Fine. I have a few more questions first, then, but then I want you to show me.” Lucius frowned expectantly, and he watched as the girl nodded shortly to herself, looking down at her piece of parchment. “What do you do with your hands?”

At this, Lucius smirked. “What, you don’t plan to manhandle the robes of every boy you kiss in the future?” She went a delightful shade of pink at that, but just raised an eyebrow challengingly at him. A shame - infuriating as it was, he was coming to appreciate her sharp tongue, much more than the cowed and insecure bookworm. 

“It depends. It’s just whatever feels right, feels good.” At this she shot him a glare, and he rolled his eyes, getting a bit impatient with this incessant questioning. “On his shoulders, on his chest, around his neck, on his face, in his hair, down his robes, take your pick.” 

She looked mortified, but was scrambling with her quill to write down everything that he’d said, and he exhaled heavily, rubbing his palms over his face. “It would also help if you stopped treating this like a class assignment. Treat it like one, and you kiss like one, and the other person feels like they’re an essay you’re trying to force youself to write.”

The girl dropped her quill and parchment back into her bag to wring her hands, lips pressed tightly together, as she clearly fought fo figure out how to say something. Suddenly she dropped her hands, looking up at him with earnestness writ plainly on her expressive features, and Lucius felt a pang of something he chose not to examine, not now. “But how will I know I’m ready?” 

“Whenever you decide to be ready. Think of it as a leap of faith.” 

She paused, looking thoughtful. Somewhere in the distance, the Weird Sisters began playing a ballad. A breeze stirred across the nighttime landscape, swirling the smell of roses around the two of them and, Lucius noticed, stirring loose a few rambunctious curls from Granger’s carefully prepared coiffure. 

The girl stepped forward, looking still nervous, but more determined than she’d looked all evening. “Okay then. I’m ready.” She took a deep breath, another hesitant step forward, and Lucius did her the kindness of closing the distance between the two of them and leaning down, gently tilted her chin up to kiss him. 

To his credit, she was much improved. For a moment, her lips were tense against his, but then she was relaxing, softening, small lips responding gently to his own, pressing softly up against him. He felt her hands fluttering at his side for a moment, an indecisive butterfly, but then she slid them up his chest, small hands surprisingly strong as they smoothed over the cashmere of his dress robes. He remembered suddenly that he owed her a lesson, and kissed her more fiercely, momentarily, before drawing back so as just to press a butterfly kiss against her bottom lip, and then moved back to kissing her firmly. This time when he drew back, she made a soft noise in the back of her throat and leaned up on tiptoe to follow his mouth, hands sliding up his chest to his shoulders. Her hands were restless then, from his shoulders up to cup his face, tracing across the five o clock shadow along his jaw with wonder, thumb smoothing across a cheekbone before she finally slid one hand into his long hair. Merlin, if she was actually trying all of his suggestions he hoped that “down his robes” wasn’t soon in his future, and at that thought he chuckled softly against her lips. He felt her tense slightly, and braced for the onslaught of her rage and bruised ego (it hadn’t escaped his notice that she didn’t like to be laughed at), but instead, after the briefest moment she relaxed again, a brief burst of warm breath as she laughed softly, as well, and for a moment they stayed pressed against each other, smiling, before Lucius drew back. 

“That was... nice,” Granger said, still smiling softly. 

Lucius snorted. “I should hope so.” 

The girl started out of her smiling haze. “No, not the kiss! I mean, that was also nice, but I meant that part at the end. Laughing. I didn’t think laughing... It was... unexpectedly nice.” 

He tilted his head, looking at her for a moment. “I told you, kissing can be fun, when you’re not researching it.”

She flushed slightly at the call out, but didn’t object. “Why did you start laughing, anyway?” she said, leaning down to fiddle with the strap of one shoe. 

He felt his face grow slightly warm, and cursed the mulled wine; Malfoys did not blush, and this was the second time since running into Granger, though the first could be excused by the clearly unfathomable shock of coming across Potter’s Mudblood brain surrounded by what looked like Playwitch’s seedier, cheaper sister magazine. He took advantage of the fact that she was looking down, distracted, to hope that she hadn’t noticed this one. “I, ah, was merely hoping that you weren’t going to make an attempt at every single one of the options I had given you for hand placement.” 

She paused in her adjustment, and he could see her face screw up with concentration before turning bright red, and he laughed again, the sound of her bright, high laugh joining in with his as she stood up.

“No. Just... no.” She fiddled with the hem of her dress again, looking down to hide a small smile, before she seemed to shake the thought off, turning to face him again. “I want to try doing the thing you did. The... drawing people in thing.” 

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said, reaching out to adjust his cuffs as he waited for her to steel herself like she’d done before, and so he was utterly unprepared for the hesitant girl of five minutes ago to launch herself at him, arms reaching up to wrap around his neck as she pressed her lips against his. This time there was no moment of tension or hesitation, just warm soft lips moving gently against his own. He didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed it before, but she smelled delightful, like fresh ink and earl grey tea and honeysuckle, and he was dimly aware that she was pulling back now, just placing the barest ghost of a kiss at each corner of his mouth, and that he was growling softly as he cupped the back of her neck, pulling her back into the kiss, but she was humming contentedly, one hand sliding back into his hair, and he wanted to laugh again, warn her that neither the Krum boy nor the Weasley had hair she could run her fingers through and wrap around them, the way she seemed to be enjoying doing with his own, when, all at once, he felt her pull back just slightly, and then the warmth of her tongue, reaching out to swipe tentatively at his bottom lip, and a sharp frisson of electricity as she ran her nails along his scalp, together went straight to his groin with dizzying suddenness, and he jerked away from her with a groan that he managed to turn into a grunt.

***

Hermione stumbled backwards, blanching at the way he’d shoved himself away from her. She’d overhead the other girls in the dormitory talking about kissing with tongue, and it had just seemed right in the moment to run her fingers along his scalp, had been a whim, but she had clearly been _wrong_ , obviously the lesson from that was not to improvise, but to stick to the things Mr. Malfoy had demonstrated for her, and so her voice was choked as, looking down at the ground, she managed to get out a gasped “I’m so sorry”.

“No, no,” Mr. Malfoy muttered, his voice seeming lower and more guttural than usual, less of the Malfoy polish. “You did nothing wrong.”

She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms and avoiding his gaze. “You don’t have to try to make me feel better.” 

She heard him huff in exasperation and felt him jerk her head up to meet his gaze. “You stupid stupid girl, listen to me. You did _nothing wrong_. You were... too right,” he muttered, eyes darting to the side, and Hermione grew warm with what was almost certainly a tomato-red blush as she realized what he meant. 

“Oh,” she said simply, with a small smile of satisfaction that sparked to life something warm and tingling in her lower abdomen. “So, I did well then?”

He released his grip on his face and stood back with an exhale. “Yes, you did well.”

“How well, though?” 

“Very well, Miss Granger.” 

She frowned, mind already scrabbling at the vast expanse of ‘very well’. “Acceptable, exceeds expectations, or outstanding?” 

She watched as disbelief slowly crept across his aristocratic features, followed by an ungentlemanly snort. “I’m beginning to understand why my son refers to you as an insufferable know-it-all teachers’ pet,” he drawled, but she found, unexpectedly, that there was no venom behind it, just the hint of a smirk at the corner of his lips. Lips her eyes lingered on hungrily. Kissing Mr. Malfoy was much more enjoyable and a much better idea than kissing that statute had been. Finally, he sighed. “Outstanding, Miss Granger. Are you happy now?” 

She paused, thinking it over. The achievement felt good, as it always did when she excelled at something, and of course the kiss had been wonderful. And if she could make Lucius Malfoy think she was doing something too right, then certainly she should be well placed for Viktor. But... she had one kiss left, and surely wasn’t there more to learn? “Yes... but there has to still be room to learn more. I want to know more of how to make things... great, like at the end. Those were just accidents. There must be more.” 

Mr. Malfoy stiffened at her mention of the end of their last kiss, and seemed to give her a calculating look. “That... tends to be very specific to individual preferences. Not everyone likes the same things, beyond getting the basics right, and you now do the basics well. You can figure out what each person likes with practice.” 

She frowned up at him, turning something over in her mind, hesitant, but the memory of the last kiss hung heavy in her mind, the awareness of what she’d actually caused, what _she_ had been able to do, impossibly, to Lucius Malfoy, and she felt... power, like when she’d first realized she could really do magic. And power made her bold. “So tell me what you like.” 

His eyes snapped up to hold her own, something warning in his gaze, but she just met it with her own, wondering if he could see the heat behind her eyes. “I told you, it wouldn’t help you.” 

“Maybe,” she said lightly, pausing to wet her lips slightly before she continued, noticing the way his eyes followed the movements of her tongue. _Power_. “But they’ll be examples, so I know the kind of things that people might like. I can’t just go around hoping everyone likes the same two things I managed to accidentally try on you. And you do owe me one more kiss,” she said, every bit the Hermione Granger who’d managed to convince her professors to let her time travel as a thirteen year old. 

There was a moment where the two just held each other’s gazes, neither backing down, but finally Malfoy sighed, rubbing a hand against his face. “Fine.” He didn’t look back up at her as he continued speaking, but Hermione decided not to press the point. “You’ve probably already deduced that I prefer things to be a bit... rougher. Not everyone does, but I do. Scratch me, bite me - my lips, right now, obviously, but it’s not the only place it’s enjoyable. You can suck, too. Mix it up so that it’s hard, then soft - an open mouthed kiss, a bite, then soothe it with your tongue.” His tone had gone almost monotonous, lecture-like, and he was still covering his face, looking down into his palm with his eyes closed, but Hermione was listening hungrily, feeling the sparks in her lower abdomen grow more feverish. Everything that Mr. Malfoy was describing sounded _delightful_ , and she was very eager to see what he would do, what she could do. 

He stopped talking and cleared his throat. “Last kiss. Any other last requests?” he said, in that same monotonous tone, as he straightened up, brushing nonexistent dirt off of his robes and rearranging them. 

“Yes. It’s my last one so... it ends when _I_ end it,” Hermione said, more confidently than she felt, and she could sense the retort rising in him, could tell he was going to say no, so she stepped forward and began kissing him again before he could deny her. 

She wanted desperately to throw herself into it, to get to those moments that had an almost desperate quality, but she also wanted this to take as long as she could possibly make it take, to get as much out of this last kiss as she could. So she started slowly, softly pressing delicate kisses against his lips as her hands ghosted over his face, pulling him into her, running over the stubble that lined his strong jawline. She shivered at the rasp of it against her fingers, and, in an impulsive moment, pulled her lips off of his to run them along his jaw, to feel it against her lips, against her cheek, and smiled when she felt him choke off a noise in the back of his throat. His lips sought hers out and she welcomed them back, pressing more firmly, arms winding around his neck as one hand found its way back to his hair. Now she deepened things, feeling the fire rising insistently in her, an ache she didn’t know what to do with as she gently bit at his lower lip, just a light nip, and one of his hands immediately rose to grasp at her waist, clutching at her, the other tangling in her hair, and she gasped at that. He took advantage of her gasp to press another kiss against her open mouth, and, oh, that was even better, and so she continued the kiss, open mouthed, pausing to suck gently at his lower lip, enjoying the growl that elicited. When he nipped at her bottom lip in return, she was unprepared for the starburst of pleasure that filled her veins with fire, running straight to her core. She whimpered, pressing her thighs together as if that could relieve some of the pressure building there, heard him gasp a muttered curse against her open mouth as she moved, and then leaned forward to press herself against him, molding her body to his taller, powerful one, feeling the warmth of it, the soft cashmere of his robes, and something else too, something that made the ache between her legs intensify. 

He pulled away from her mouth, pressing his forehead to hers to murmur “Miss Granger”, but she just dropped her lips to press kisses to his jaw, nails tracing patterns on his scalp just to feel him jerk beneath her, and he was more insistent this time, though his voice was gravelly when he said “Miss Granger”, and, on another whim, she took the hand she’d wrapped in his hair and gave it a gentle tug so she could bite at the exposed skin of his neck, like she’d seen one of the wizards do in those magazines, like he’d said he’d like. This time the groan was unmistakeable, but in a flash, before she could process what was happening, he’d jerked her hands away from him and behind her back, holding them there, immobile. She realized, rationally, that she was helpless, in the presence of a very Dark wizard, but God help her instead of fear, she felt the fire lick at her insides again, panting heavily as she whined low in her throat and squirmed against him. 

He closed his eyes and looked up at the sky, letting his head fall back as he gulped in cool air. “We are done, Miss Granger.”

“No!” she cried out, struggling to free her hands. “My last request was that this end when I said so. It’s my last one!” 

“We are _done_ kissing, Miss Granger. I think you have firmly pushed the boundaries of one kiss, and it is wise to stop testing them.” His voice was still lower than normal, but firm this time, and she stopped struggling, looking into his eyes to find something sharp and predatory there that made her shudder. 

“Okay... okay...” she said, letting her breathing come back to normal as he let go of her wrists, removing his arms from where they’d been wrapped around her to pin her. She hesitated for a moment before she stepped away from him, inexplicably missing the warmth of him, the smell of cedar and mulled wine and smoke. 

They both looked away from each other for a moment, Hermione gathering her bag and the rest of her things. “Mr. Malfoy, wait... Before you go... why did you offer?”

He paused, looking thoughtful as he rubbed at the inside of his left forearm in a way that could’ve been absentminded if she hadn’t noticed the long gaze he cast at it. “Well, I suppose since this conversation will stay between the two of us...” He exhaled heavily, looking at the stars again. “Because you are still just a girl.” 

She gasped, face twisting as she worked through his meaning, and then he blanched, as if realizing what he’d said. “No, no, not like that. Merlin, I am _not_ interested in children,” he said with a disgusted twist of his face. “I just meant...” He sighed, running a palm across his face again, searching for words. “There is something coming. Dark times. You’re Potter’s friend, you won’t be able to escape it. None of us will. But right now, you’re still just a child. And I remember what that was like. You deserve to worry about childish things, to have a first kiss, to have a crush. Merlin, you’re so young, but you won’t be for much longer.” 

He sounded so... melancholy, voice guttural and almost breaking at the end, and Hermione’s brow furrowed, for once curiosity overpowered by concern. “Mr. Malfoy?” she asked softly, stepping forward hesitantly to reach out and touch his arm, the stretch of his inner forearm where he kept rubbing. He jerked at first, but didn’t pull away from her, just shut his eyes tightly and exhaled through his nose. “Thank you,” she said, leaning up on tiptoe to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. He smiled at her, though he looked pained, but didn’t move. When Hermione headed down the path to the castle and turned around, he was still standing in that same spot, looking at the sky and rubbing his arm.

***

Later that evening, Lucius had cleared his head (as clear as it was going to get, at least) and rejoined Fudge at a table at the head of the Great Hall. Fudge was prattling on about the newest reason he needed Lucius’ money, and Lucius was watching the crowd of students in front of him, trying not to drift too far into moroseness, when a flash of periwinkle blue caught his eye and he watched as the Granger girl twirled her way into the arms of the Durmstrang champion. Then Krum leaned forward and whispered something in her ear, she nodded, and the two of them began making their way to the doors leading back out to the rose garden. As they were about to exit, he saw her turn around and her eyes scan the room until they met his own. He blushed (again, damnit) at having been caught staring, but she gave him a small, secret smile and a wink.

A wink. He coughed, choking on his mulled wine and she laughed brightly, he could hear it as clearly as he had in the garden, and then followed her champion out the door, but her eyes were still locked on his.

**Author's Note:**

> There it is! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I know that this is kiiiinndd of open-ended in that, in theory, Hermione now owes Lucius a favor, and I could be persuaded to plot that out into something (or lbr, probably will think of something in the shower two weeks from now when I need to be doing something else), but for now it's just an open-ended little one-shot.


End file.
